— Richard Adams (Watership Down)
Israel doesn't have friends, Israel prefers associates, friends are a pain they have to be listened to, they have to be shown respect and Richard Adams quote sums up the paranoid view of Israel very well. The Christchurch earthquake was, well a game changer and this is in no way an attack in the Israeli victims of the the disaster. In 2004 Mossad agents were gaoled in New Zealand over passport fraud.
" The prime minister of New Zealand angrily denounced Israel and imposed diplomatic sanctions on it after two suspected Mossad agents were jailed for six months for trying on false grounds to obtain a New Zealand passport.
The plot, which involved obtaining a passport in the name of a tetraplegic man who had not spoken in years, provoked a furious reaction yesterday.
"The breach of New Zealand laws and sovereignty by agents of the Israeli government has seriously strained our relationship with Israel," said the prime minister, Helen Clark.
"This type of behaviour is unacceptable internationally by any country. It is a sorry indictment of Israel that it has again taken such actions against a country with which it has friendly relations."
You have to seriously piss us off to get that sort of reaction and relations really only normalised last year with the re-accreditation of an Israeli ambassador to New Zealand based in Canberra. Today things turned to custard again. The Security Intelligence Service ( SIS ) probably one off the more incompetent branches of the New Zealand Government ( trust me these guys have left brief cases on trains full of top secret documents and strangely in one case Playboy magazines as well and another a half eaten meat pie ) but that aside we have this today.
" Police say they are confident their computer system is secure, as Prime Minister John Key declines to answer questions over Israeli spy claims.
The police national computer has been under scrutiny in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake in February because of fears Israeli agents loaded software into the system that would allow backdoor access to highly sensitive intelligence files.
The Security Intelligence Service ordered the checks as part of an urgent investigation of what one SIS officer described as the suspicious activities of several groups of Israelis during and immediately after the earthquake.
Three Israelis were among the 181 people who died when the earthquake destroyed most of Christchurch's central business district on February 22. One was found to be carrying at least five passports.
An unaccredited Israeli search and rescue squad was later confronted by armed New Zealand officers and removed from the sealed-off "red zone" of the central city. "
Now that is odd to say the least and the Prime Minister is now saying it is a non issue, the problem is for the PM that there are a lot of questions that just don't add up.
" Key also insisted there had been no misuse of New Zealand passports but when asked to confirm one Israeli had five passports he would only say he was aware they had several in their possession but refused to elaborate.
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Key four times on the day of the earthquake but Key would only discuss part of those phone calls, which he said were to offer help and advice.
He would not discuss other aspects of the calls.
But when asked repeatedly if the Israeli government had done anything wrong he would not answer, saying it was not in the national interest for him to do so. "
The journalist who wrote this is old school or not News Of The World ( I may well have met him but I can't remember him )
" EVENTS AFTER THE QUAKE
The response of the Israeli government to the three deaths appears extraordinary. In the hours after the 6.3 quake struck:
- 1) Prime Minister John Key fielded the first of four calls that day from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
- 2) Israel's Ambassador in the South Pacific, Shemi Tzur, who is based in Australia, booked flights to Christchurch, where he visited the morgue.
- 3) Israel's civil defence chief left Israel for Christchurch.
- 4) A complete Israeli urban search and rescue squad was assembled and flown to Christchurch, arriving about the same time as ...( That is what it says )
- 5) Three people who had smashed their way out of a van crushed by a concrete pillar in the central city, leaving a fourth person dead in the vehicle, arrived back in Israel."
Now this is in my opinion a legitamate reason for NZ authorities to investigate I just wish it was the police not the SIS, for reason outlined above, today the NZ Herald did something smart. and got one of the sharpest brains in NZ to do a live chat , Paul Buchanan is probably the best international relations guys I have seen, many of my readers will have read my reposts of Pablo but this struck out.
" The reason this will be of concern is that NZ and Israel are already intelligence-sharing partners, so it can be deemed offensive and outside of the "gentlemen's agreement" between them to have Israeli operatives engaged in illegal or unauthorised activities on NZ soil. it is also a sovereignty issue, for those more nationalistically inclined. If it turns out that the Israelis were trying to obtain NZ citizen identities, that would violate the assurances given by the Israeli govt in 2005-06 that such incidents would never happen again. in other words, it would be bad diplomatic form for the Israelis to conduct such operations in a "friendly" country with which it already shares intelligence. "
What the fuck, Israel needs to front up. New Zealand needs to think about friendship.
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